1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to installing software products, herein referred to as software packages or packages, onto computing systems in a distributed processing computing system having a server and multiple clients. More particularly, the invention relates to installing a software package onto server file space and multiple client file spaces in a file system of the server.
2. Description of Related Art
In a distributive processing system, multiple client computer workstations, i.e. clients, attached to a server computing system, i.e. server, are provided with computer services, particularly file system services, from the server. In the server, there is a large capacity non-volatile storage device, such as a hard disk drive, for storing the operative program and data files used by the server. In addition, this storage device also stores files allocated to each client's operative programs and data.
Each client is connected through a network file system, NFS, to the Unix file system, UFS, in the server. The client need not have its own disk drive for storing program and data files. In effect, client program and data files in the server are available to the client as virtual disk drives as the program and data files of the client are needed for operation.
To install a new software package onto such a server/client system, a package installation utility has been used. In the Unix System V Release 4 operating system, this installation utility is pkgadd (package add).
The pkgadd utility (a utility is a program) receives software packages for installation usually from a compact disk read only memory (CDROM). The software package is delivered on CDROM and read by the CDROM drive into the server. The pkgadd utility installs the package and stores the installed package on the hard disk drive in the server.
Where the software is used by both the server and the clients, the installation of the package must be done once for the server files and once for each of the clients. The client installation is installed onto file systems on the server's hard disk(s) which are made available to clients via NFS. For example, if the software package was to be installed for the server and three clients, the installation of the software package must be performed four times--once for the server and once for each of the clients.
Since each installation is a time consuming process, what is needed is the capability to install a software package on the server system and all the client file systems in a single installation operation.